Is Turkey earthquake linked to that in Buffalo, Ontario?

The timing of the 3.8-magnitude earthquake felt in parts of the east coast in the United States and Canada, hours after a devastating one jolted Turkey and Syria had many people on social media question if there was a connection between both.

Elianna Lev, a Toronto-based writer for Yahoo Canada News, said both earthquakes were “unrelated.”

She quoted John Cassidy, an earthquake seismologist with Natural Resources Canada, as saying that both instances are relatively rare events. “The 7.8 shallow quake in Turkey is one of the largest experienced in the region in 100 years, and ruptured a fault hundreds of kilometers long,” Cassidy reportedly said.

The earthquake felt near Buffalo, New York, and Ontario in the Niagara Falls area, however, is most likely unrelated, Lev said.

She explained that Cassidy pointed out that earthquakes are sometimes triggered by a large underground shock such as the one in Turkey, but that they tend to happen within the length of the ruptured zone, not exceeding 500 kilometers.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported several aftershocks in Turkey and smaller tremors worldwide, such as in Guam, Indonesia, Chile and the United States, including several cities in California on the west coast, and far east in Buffalo, New York, as well as the Canadian province of Ontario further north.

The USGS reported a 3.8-magnitude quake centered east of Buffalo in West Seneca at about 6:15 a.m., CBS News reported. It quoted seismologist Yaareb Altaweel as saying it “matched the intensity of the strongest earthquake the region has seen in 40 years of available records — a 3.8 quake that was recorded in November 1999.”

At least 4,825 people were killed in in Monday’s earthquake in both Turkey and Syria, according to an update toll reported by the Guardian. Thousands of  others were also injured, or are still missing, believed to be under the rubble from mostly concrete buildings that were flattened to the ground.